This past weekend, we managed to chop through the rocky clay that is our front yard and plant a palo brea tree and an emu bush, the beginnings of our landscaping efforts which we hope to have at least well underway if not completed before it gets too hot to work outside.

The tree is just under 5 feet tall while the bush is nearly 2 1/2 feet tall. One day, if all goes as we hope through our efforts, we'll have some great shade out front which should dress up the yard and help keep our cooling costs down.

Next up, some ground cover.

Why, you might ask, when we live in a desert region that's had a drought going for a decade or so would we be planting anything? Why not just dump some gravel in the front yard and call it a day?

Because that kind of landscaping (hardscaping) is part of the reason it's so damned hot and dry here. If more people would plant drought resistant foliage (like the palo brea tree and the emu bush) and ground cover, we might be able to bring down the nighttime temperatures here a little bit more like what happens in our undeveloped desert areas here in Arizona's Sonoran Desert.

You see, we don't have a Sahara type of desert here. It's not all sand dunes and wind gusts. We have a lot of vegetation here which surprises many people. Unfortunately, so many people think deserts are devoid of plant life that they adorn their yards with nothing and call it "desert landscaping".

We're trying to do something more in line with what the actual untouched desert looks like around here. There may not be a lot of green here, but there's a whole lot more than people seem to think. It's not the lush and verdant New England scene, but it's not the hot and barren north Africa, either.

Well, it is hot.